Stalin's Role in the Korean War

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Transcript of Stalin's Role in the Korean War

Stalin's Role in the Outbreak of Korean Conflict Stalin's Position before 1949 Stalin's Change of Mind Stalin did not want a Third World War and worried about peace NO. No provocation = no moral right+KPA not strong enough+American forces still present in the South Soviet embassy in NK reports frequent over-the-border incursions by South Still, nothing changes until... Communists win in China

Soviets acquire the atomic bomb in August

NATO is established and West-East relations are aggravated

US troops withdraw from South Korea But, Kim Il Sung pressurizes Stalin to approve attack on the South - and Stalin's answer? September 1949

Re-evaluation of possibility of war by embassy in NK negative, Kim's request denied Stalin acquiesces to what he sees as a North Korean blitzkrieg "The troops went to their start position by 24,00 hrs on 24 June. Military activities began at 4-40 local time ... The attack by the People's Army took the enemy completely by surprise."

Telegram, sent to Stalin by his ambassador in North Korea, General Shtykov, two days after the start of the war Sources Paul Lashmar, "Stalin's 'Hot' War," New Statesman & Society, vol. 9, no. 388, February 2, 1996 <http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/lashmar.htm>Dr. Evgeni Bajanov, Director of the Institute for Contemporary International Problems, Russian Foreign Ministry, Moscow, Russia -- "The Korean War, An assessment of the Historical Record," 24-25 July 1995, Georgetown Univ., Washington, D.C. <http://www.alternativeinsight.com/Korean_War.html>History of the Fatherland "Stalin, Kim Il Sung, and the 38th Parallel," Krasnaya Zvezda, 5 August 1995, page 7. -- Anatoli Torkunov, Professor Yevgeniy Ufimtsev. <http://www.koreanwar.org/html/kdata/zveda.htm>